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Our top 5 sales planning tips

· Costs,Cloud Accounting,Small business

As a small business owner, this part often gets overlooked - writing a sales plan (not marketing, just sales)

Many people are afraid of putting sales forecasts and plans in place because of the perceived pressure it then puts on the business to achieve targets. However, what if we said that having a well-thought through sales plan could be a game changer for your business.

In my blog, I will share some tips on sales planning that I have seen work very well.

Ok first things first, what exactly is a sales plan?

I will be simple with my description.

"A sales plan helps define what price you should charge for your solutions or services, along with how many times you need to sell them to achieve your revenue targets"

We here at Gahan and Co love manageable bite-sized chunks. They just seem so much easier to manage. A strategy allows you manage the bite-sized chunks. For example, how often do manage targets? With this level of visibility, you can then monitor cash flow easily.

So, what are 5 key things you can think about today to help move your sales and goals forward?

#1 Have one person managing sales (business development).

Clarify roles and responsibility in your business - it’s essential that one person takes ownership of sales.
This can be full time or part-time.

#2 Understand your sales process. Be customer centric

Always think of how you can help your customers

#3 Understand the sales funnel from the top to the bottom,

Do you have visibility over all these steps and are you measuring how many people come through this funnel?

For example:

  • How many website visits/ website enquiries and prospect meetings or phone calls have you had?  

#4 Make time to proactively work on sales.

Unfortunately, it doesn't just happen by magic!

Simple, you’ve got to make time for it!

Some ideas to consider:

Find ways to monitor your website traffic and enquiries

Consider developing an inbound marketing approach

#5 Re-evaluate on a regular basis

Another way test and measure every activity regularly.

Do you know why you’ve lost out on work?

A sales plan is there to break things into manageable chunks and actionable tasks.

Good luck!